Deck Testing - Round 2

[willng3]

Post any results obtained from Deck testing here.

[Belligerence]

About to do (hopefully) a bunch of testing. I plan on testing 2 random decks each of our opponents used last round ( ) as well as any counters used against us in War 4 (here).

Posting now so I can edit as I go, rather than having to write it all down on paper I don't feel like finding. I'll test decks to first to 5, unless it goes 0-3.

Spoiler for First up:

Spoiler for Some deck my half awake brain came up with:

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5c2 5c2 5c2 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c9 5c9 5c9 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f6 5fb 5fb 5fc 5fc 5fc 7ds 7ds 8po

 

Pandebonium 1 - 5 This is ugly. The one win was from a really strong start, I managed to out-mitosis the Pandemonium, and I deflagged an Arsenic early on that didn't get replaced until too late. Mitosis'ed Phoenixes are very very fragile.

Deck Death used against Time: 1 - 5 Outrushed. Bone Wall is OP. Death is OP.

Deck Death used against Aether: 5 - 2 Originally went 3-0, but decided to go to 5 because the games were close. Every heal counts against a deck like this.

 

Winged Toadfish + CC from Air: 0 - 3 Countered. Hard. 1 HP creatures do not take well to poison, Adrenaline'd or not. AI doesn't hesitate to poison the Ashes, so the reincarnated Phoenix's die next turn... again.

Deck Water used against Earth: 3 - 5 Against the AI, the games were close. If it were an actual person, I doubt I'd have gotten more than 1 win. CC is, apparently, this decks worst nightmare.

Deck Water used against Death: 3 - 0 Easy wins. Easily outdamaged, and without BW, Pandemonium just isn't as dangerous to creatures as resilient as Phoenixes.

 

Light/Aether duo: 0 - 3 1 Deflag versus 5 Dimensional Shields. Nothing else to say, really.

Deck Light used against Life: 5 - 1 Light's deck is strong, but not fast enough. None of the games I won were particularly close, even without drawing Heals a couple times.

Deck Light used against Fire: 5 - 1 At first glance, I figured this would be really hard, if not impossible, to beat before I decked out. Diamond Shield makes MP all but useless, but unupgraded Phoenix does just fine, if you hold Deflag till you can kill.

 

Discord Grabbow: 0 - 3 Discord is cruel. Eventually your quanta production overruns Discord scrambling, but by then its too late.

Deck Entropy used against Life: 1 - 5 Nasty. Between early Discord, upped Pandemonium, Maxwell's, and that oh-so-cruel Nymph, this is a no contest fight. My win came from a strong start where I managed to Rage Potion a Maxwell's and the Nymph early on, and Deflag a Discord which didn't get replaced at all.

Deck Entropy used against Death: 5 - 1 Close games. Saving Rage Potions for Maxwell's is really what made the difference between 5 - 1 and 1 - 5.

Busy day today, I didn't get as much testing done as I had hoped. Will continue tomorrow.

 

PUgons Earth Version: 1 - 0 I quit this one. AI doesn't play this deck even remotely well. DimShield the turn after I play a single MP, PU'ing my Phoenixes when it has a dragon...

Earth Firestall: 1 - 0 AI doesn't play Firestalls correctly. Just gonna skip this one too, bolting my Phoenixes isn't how you win with a Firestall.

Deck Earth used against Aether: 0 - 3 I thought this was gonna be a walkover. Nope, apparently this deck is very sturdy, and Nightmare serves to slow you down just enough that you get outrushed.

Deck Earth used against Darkness: 5 - 3 Games were decided by how early the Owl's Eye came out, if I had Deflag (if it came out early) and if the Owl's Eye got replaced quickly.

 

Deck Air used against Entropy: 0 - 3 Countered. Hard. With so much CC in one deck, its basically impossible to hope that he won't draw some of it early.
 
Deck Air used against Time: 0 - 3 Eagle's Eye + Bone Wall + reviving Phoenixes = unbreakable Bone Wall. A win might be possible if you managed to Deflag the Eagle's Eye without getting it replaced, but I wouldn't count on it.

Overall assessment: Best against Water and Light. Bad against CC. Winning or losing is usually clear, only a few decks result in really close matches.

Spoiler for Failure decks:

Alright, I got quite a bit of testing done. Unfortunately, my laptop had a coincidental meeting with the ground, in which the results of all the testing I did were lost. It's not as bad as one might assume, because none of the decks I came up with actually did well in the testing. I'll post the ones I remember here.

Spoiler for Hidden:

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5bt 5bt 5c0 5c0 5c0 5c2 5c2 5c3 5c3 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c9 5c9 5c9 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 7ag 7ag 8pn

If it was faster, or got set up faster, or stalled better, it might work. As is, its terrible.

Spoiler for Hidden:

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5c2 5c2 5c3 5c3 5c5 5c9 5c9 5c9 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 7al 7al 8pq

I saw this one before, decided to see how it fared. It did "OK" against Entropy, but got easily outrushed when you don't draw the right cards.

Spoiler for Hidden:

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5bu 5bu 5bu 5bu 5c2 5c2 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 7dn 7dn 8po

A different take on the Scorpion Firestall. Its faster, but it can't stall, so if you don't win quickly, you lose. Very unstable.

Also, after reading Willng's comment on the Round 2 Discussion thread, I can't help but wonder if I just did all the testing the wrong way. The team chat pad said to work on deckbuilding, but Will's comment suggested using decks that were prepared ahead of time... so...

I also should note that I won't be active until around 5-7 PM EST/EDT tomorrow, I have a meeting that I need to to attend to, and it will likely take several hours, so I'll miss the start of Round 2 duels. I'll be active again after the meeting.

[Helston]

At this stage, Belligerence, we're mostly relying on pre-made decks. The deck testing thread for Round 1 gives a much better idea of what we should be doing.

My current thoughts/testing. Credit to will for all these ideas. That is:

: PUgon - Counters so hard it isn't funny. We might want to keep those Dims as salvage.
: Adrenatitans - Works surprisingly well against whatever it faces. Except a deck with RTs.
: Nature's Wrath - Tends to beat anything except for their miracle stalls. Vader Saders is tricky, but bad draws from the Saders give us the advantage.
: Wings - From what I could tell, there's a lot of dragons kicking around this war. As such, using Wings is always going to be a gamble, but against entropy that might be our best hope. My main fear is that they'll send their event card match-up our way, bringing something to get around an expected stall, with Discord splashed in simply because they can.
: Devtosis sounds pretty good, it might even be able to out-damage a light-stall with a good draw.
: No idea. Options include: A 2-upgrade Frogtal, Adrenastaves, some sort of Fire duo with the dregs of our Vault, our Grabow, Crustosis or a Mono.


Here goes with the testing: checking out PUgon vs .

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5bs 5bs 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 61r 61r 61r 61r 61t 61t 61t 61t 7ac 7ac 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 7bu 8pu

Spoiler for results:

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vg 4vg 4vg 4vg 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 50u 50u 50u 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 5ia 5id 5id 5id 5id 5id 5id 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 7gk 7i6 8pj

3-0. This is a hard counter. You can play your dragons as they come, and generally should to create pressure to play Pandemonium. This is a very easy win.

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 52q 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i7 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5og 5on 5on 5v1 61q 7q4 7q4 8pr

6-4. Counter with skill. Not an easy match, the combination of Nightmare, Rewind and what seemed to be a thousand Fog Shields (although I'm very surprised it was only one now) can create hell. Either need to attack quickly before the Fog pops up, or hold back and try to chain dims for a while, hoping you can build up enough burst to win. The good news is they've already had to discard from this deck.

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5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i4 5i8 5i8 5i8 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5jm 5jm 5jm 5jm 5up 5up 5v1 5v1 5v1 5v1 7gk 7gm 7gm 7tb 7tb 8pt

6-4. Counter with skill and/or luck. Keep an eye on your opponent's Darkness quanta and try to time Dims so you get two turns of stalling before they can steal it. If you play a dragon you want to PU it or play a second on the same turn. As with the last deck, they've had to discard from here last round, but they've had enough Darkness Salvage to keep the deck fully intact.

We've definitely got our deck vs.  here.

Next up, .

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55s 55s 55s 55s 55s 55s 55t 55t 55t 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 7n2 8pl

Spoiler for results:

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4sk 4sk 4sk 52g 52g 52g 52g 52h 52h 52h 542 542 542 542 542 542 5on 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 713 713 713 713 713 713 71a 71a 8pr

3-5, Not a counter. This specific version is impossible to see, because it's ralouf's but if they threw something like this together from their Lt. the result wouldn't be much different. Not likely to see this one at all, however, as we've mostly shown stalls/stallbreakers. Lost in round 1.

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52h 52h 52h 52h 52t 52t 52t 52t 52t 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 5uo 5up 5up 5up 5v1 5v1 7ta 7tb 8pt

4-6. Went 3-3 before losing three in a row. This is truly a flying titans deck, being incredibly luck-based. Try to avoid playing Titans unless you've got a flying weapon, although having them replace a Stiletto with a Titan is a net gain unless they've got a second Stiletto in hand.

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52h 52q 52q 52r 52r 52t 52t 52t 52t 52t 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 5rk 713 713 8ps

0-2. *Points at RT x5*

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52g 52g 52g 52h 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 542 61q 61q 61q 61q 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 622 622 622 713 713 8pu

4-1. Hard counter, lost in round 1.

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52h 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52r 52r 52r 52t 52t 52t 52t 52t 52t 542 542 542 542 542 542 713 71a 8pk

4-2. Counter with a little bit of luck. Could've had it 5-1 if I'd played a GP one turn earlier.

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52h 52h 52h 52l 52l 52t 52t 542 542 542 542 593 593 593 593 593 713 713 713 71a 71a 8pm

5-5. Purely luck as to what you draw. The EQs are slow enough to get out a flying Titan with your opening hand if you start with at least 2 pendulums. To that extent EQs aren't much of a problem, just try and anticipate them. Forgot to replace the skull shields, so results might actually be a little worse, but I don't think it'd make much difference here.

A couple of tough match-ups, but it does fairly well against what Death brought last round. If they've got a Pandebonium or the like that they decide to bring along, we should have this in the bag.

Fairly good news against . Updated with one I forgot to add.

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5bt 5bt 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c2 5c5 5c5 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5f4 5f4 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 5fc 8po

Spoiler for results:

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52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52q 52q 52q 52q 52r 52r 52r 52r 5l8 5l8 5l8 5li 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 7k2 7k2 8pk

3-0, hard counter. With the combined healing and sheer power of Emerald Dragons and Phoenixes with Heals and Druidic Staves, it's an easy win. Testing with and without Deflag, both for 3-0. Make sure you Rage Pot your Dragons.

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55s 55s 55s 55s 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lf 5lf 5lf 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 7n2 7n2 8pl

3-0, hard counter. What we lost to last time, but this duo works a charm.

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 52q 590 590 590 590 5c1 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lb 5ld 5lf 5lf 5lf 5lf 61q 7dm 7dm 7ju 7ju 7ju 8pm

I think another 3-0, maybe 3-1 (running off memory). Hard counter regardless. This deck lost last round.

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5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f4 5f5 5f5 5f5 5f7 5f7 5f8 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fb 5fb 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 7k2 7la 8po

0-2, not a counter. Played one match from our point of view, one match from Light's. The results were pretty obvious. This deck lost last round.

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58o 58o 594 594 594 594 594 594 5aa 5aa 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 77c 77c 77c 7jo 7k2 7k2 7k2 7k2 8pm

2-3. Not a counter. When I played against The Immortal, there were deflags in this deck to get rid of Diamond Shields. There's no way two firebolts will make up for all that damage. The AI could've played better too, getting it at least one more win. This deck lost last round.

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5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5lf 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5ll 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5mq 5up 5up 5up 5up 5ur 5ur 5ur 5ur 7n2 7n2 8pt

Counter with skill/luck. I was about 4-6 with Deflags, until I realised that more CC would probably be better. Manage to reverse the ratio to go 6-4 (both of those might be a little out. With deflags potentially being worse than 4-6, and with Bolts better than 6-4.) 95% of the time you'll want to CC Saders, ignoring ones that endow your Staves. Some matches will be close, but a Vader's chances of a bad draw are very helpful. This deck lost last round.

Devtosis goes 50/50 against .

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5c6 5c6 5c6 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5c9 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5ul 5ul 5ul 5um 5um 5um 5um 5up 5up 7t6 7t6 8pt

Spoiler for results:

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58r 58r 595 595 595 595 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5ic 5ic 5ic 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 5ie 77a 77a 8pp

4-6. Not a counter. The tridents were never a factor, the losses were all from being outrushed and a few bad draws. BBs didn't help either, especially on a mitosis'd Pest. This deck lost last round.

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58o 58o 58o 58q 58q 58s 58s 591 591 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5up 5up 5uv 5uv 5uv 5v1 5v1 7tb 7tb 8pt

6-4. Counter with skill/luck. Not an easy match by any means. I replaced the Titanium Shields with dead cards, because Devtosis either managed a lockdown of some sort or lost. The Diamond Shields would only serve as a very good target for Steal. I also replaced the Gargoyles with upgraded Vampires so the AI wouldn't waste earth quanta on Pertifying when that might be useful elsewhere, although that was probably unnecessary with the Diamond Shields gone. This deck lost last round.

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58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58s 594 594 594 594 594 594 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5l8 5l8 5l8 5li 5li 5li 5li 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5lm 5mq 5mq 5mq 77c 77c 8pq

1-3. Not a counter. Looks like the AI had a bad draw with that loss it had, a human player might've won it though. One of the losses would've been a win with one extra card in the deck.

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4sa 4sa 4sa 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58v 590 590 590 590 590 590 595 595 595 5c1 5ia 5og 5v1 61q 77f 77f 8pl

0-5. To be expected against a rainbow. Funnily enough I actually managed a complete lockdown in the first match, but that same turn I lost. Any Emphatic Bonds at all would've won me the match.

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58o 58o 58o 58o 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 61t 622 622 622 622 779 779 779 77a 77a 8pu

4-1. Hard counter. Use steals on pendulums to lock them down that much faster. The only loss was when I had to wait ~4 turns to draw a Devourer. This deck lost last round.

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58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 58o 593 593 595 595 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5aa 5ol 5ol 5ol 5oo 5oo 5oo 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 77a 7n8 7n8 8pr

6-2. Hard counter. Save steals for Owl's Eyes, because if one of them gets up and going you're bound to lose. Might've been 5-3 against a human, because I stole a Wings at one point which might have saved me. This deck lost last round.

[drolly]

Testing our Wings deck vs . tl;dr version: essentially 50/50, with a slight advantage for us by surprising them with the same deck.

by Team Life

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5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5de 5og 5ol 5ol 5ol 5on 5on 5on 5oo 5oo 7n8 7n8 8pr

Spoiler for results:

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vd 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vf 4vf 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 50u 5oo 5oo 5oo 5oo 6u5 6u7 7dm 7gq 80a 8pr

4-0. Hard counter. The CC in their deck isn't able to cope with Emerald Dragons. The most dangerous one is Maxwell but this one can be sniped quickly. Is your dragon AM'ed? Kill it. That all of your damage goes through their Wings is quite helpful as well. Get out your Wings as early as possible to shield against an early Discord.

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vd 4ve 4ve 4vg 4vl 50u 5f6 5f6 5f6 5f6 5fb 6tv 6tv 6tv 6u5 6u5 6u7 6u7 6ve 8po

0-3. Not a counter. Will destroy everything you set up early, Discord seems to be inevitable, Wings doesn't help much against raging dragons, too much AM. And if you finally manage to negate their damage, you'll keep banging your head at a large quanta pool.

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4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vp 4vp 4vp 4vp 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52o 52r 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 5rp 71a 71a 8pk

(Losing deck vs )
4-6. RNG festival. Wings shield off against Arsenic. Bad things are: A bad initial draw, a long Sundial chain, early Poison, Pandemonium PUing or RTing dragons, having to kill PUed dragons while Bone Wall is up.

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vd 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vh 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vl 4vl 50u 50u 590 590 590 590 590 5c1 61q 7dm 7n0 8pm

(Losing deck vs )
4-0. Hard counter, yay. Early Discord can be nasty until you get your Wings. But after that you'll block most damage! Make sure to get rid of spirit and demon as soon as possible. Fog Shield's stalling ability is rather limited. Explosion can throw you back a bit but shouldn't be too dangerous. Lightning against Emeralds? lmao.

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vd 4ve 4ve 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vl 4vl 4vl 4vl 50u 50u 50u 50u 55v 55v 55v 55v 55v 55v 6ts 6ts 8pl

3-5. RNG festival. Second turn Discord, paired with Black Holes = no Wings possible = loss. Otherwise you'll have a good chance to win, provided the dragons don't come out too early. Because the only counter to your offense is one squishy demon, even 1 dragon and 1 OE can do the job.

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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vd 4vd 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vg 4vl 4vl 500 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 6u9 6u9 8pj

3-2 as we all know. Seems to be the same RNG festival thing.